Toku Resolutions
- Finish Masked Rider X. I am 18 episodes in, and I've done my usual stalling out. Need to fix that.
- Come up with coherant thoughts for Den-O so I can provide meaningful commentary when you get there and not just "Deneb best Imagin"
- Uuuuhhhh I have a vague plan to watch Kiramager. I've heard good things, and I could do with a fun show to just binge in these Tier IV evenings.

Neat! Thanks!

I got real hopeful with some of those scenes, and a lot less hopeful when a Worm would pop out of the ground in the middle of them.

I'd've been great if this episode had really grappled with Hiyori not finding an easy solution to her problems. That's pretty normal! The idea of Hiyori wandering into the Shibuya ruins and finding one crucial piece of evidence that resolves all of her misgivings and heals her emotional wounds... that is not a reasonable expectation! Her whole mission is poorly conceived and almost guaranteed to fail!

But, like, the episode not only doesn't do that, it doesn't give Tendou or Kagami any interest in that story. (I do like your read on what Tendou's going through as he continually stonewalls Hiyori, but it feels so disconnected from the main plot of what's going on that I was frustrated by the tease.) The show needed to more gently lead out of Hiyori's primary role in the storyline, but they abruptly changed direction.

Yeah, god, not gonna be one of my favorite things in 2020, that episode.

The secrets buried in the Shibuya ruins might not be immediately helpful for solving Hiyori's backstory but that just means she wasn't looking back far enough. The Meteor of 99 is the event that she remembers for leading to the death of her parents and the start of her loneliness but since ZECT has been around a lot longer than the Worms who arrived on that meteor, she needs to keep digging in to the history of 35 years ago to get her answers.

Tendo seems to care about Hiyori and Jyuka the most, so considering how he acts slightly more emotional than usual when Hiyori insists on going to Area X, it's possible that he knew she would be disappointed by her search for truth and only tagged along with them so he could console her. He clearly knows more about her past than he's willing for her to find out and he actually cares what another human being thinks about him, a rarity for sure. Even though I don't really think he's directly responsible for her parents' deaths. He's still a good guy after all.

Kagami Arata being mentioned in the journal is definitely mysterious since he's not that old. But it means that ZECT were already preparing for the Worms' invasion way before the Meteor of 99. And then there's that guy locked up, you have an interesting prediction for that. I can't say too much here.

Just for fun, I'm going rewatch God Speed Love since its AU setting means it can be watched casually without needing to follow the show.

My resolution is to watch Blade and finally finish the Heisei Rider Era before you reach the Day of Oma.

Maybe I'll start Turboranger as well if the subs ever get completed.

Hey, you're right, that's Kagura! I never recognized her actress in Kabuto before even though Kagura was one of my favorite characters in Hurricanger.

Sure, but, like, if you're Kagami's dad, Kagami Outrageous, you could totally write down "Kagami Arata is going to be Gatack", and then just name your kid Kagami Arata and BAM fulfilled prophecy. I just can't tell if we're supposed to view Kagami's role as Gatack as something Outrageous fully conceived of (no pun intended), or just something he's maneuvered into fruition. It's a cool detail, though, for sure!

So, Switchblade’s yearly Best Of thread rolled out last week. It’s the second one I’ve seen, having started on the boards late in 2019. And, for the second time, it’s one I haven’t participated in.

I really want to, someday. The problem is, I don’t watch any currently-running shows, and I probably won’t for a while. (Like, my schedule clears up around late-2022, at my current pace of getting through shows.) All of those categories, they’re pretty much all about the current shows. I don’t really feel like I can contribute to that discussion, what with me living within early-2000s toku for the last year. Not super relevant to the discourse, you know?

The other problem is that my memory is nowhere, and I don’t do much in the way of behind-the-scenes trivia. I couldn’t give a Best Of nearly anything, since I regularly forget the plots of shows I watched a month ago. I routinely need to look up names of characters from shows I spent months watching. (There was a point in the last few days that Fish Sandwich mentioned “Shinji”, and it took me a few seconds to realize that was the title character from Kamen Rider Ryuki, a series I watched in its entirety.) Not only do I not watch current shows, I can’t remember anything from the shows I did watch.

But, it’s the end of the year, and I’d like to do something that… I mean, not “celebrates” it, eff this hell year, but maybe something that acknowledges the fun I’ve had on the TokuNation boards in 2020. So, here’s some brand-new thoughts on the shows I’ve watched this year, in a little piece I’m calling:

KAMEN RIDER DIE TALKS ABOUT THE FIRST THING HE REMEMBERS FROM THE KAMEN RIDER SHOWS HE WATCHED THIS YEAR

---

First off, let’s talk stats. Not counting responses on the boards, I wrote 525 pages this year on Kamen Rider shows. (There was a Build V-Cinema I covered, but that was only three pages so I’m not going to mention it other than right here.) That is 245,650 words, or the length of a shorter Fish Sandwich post about Kuuga. I kid! I kid. My only hope in writing so much is that I’ll eventually hone my sloppiness into something approaching Fish’s precision.

---

AGITO (53 pages, 25833 words)

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...awastreet3.png

Maybe it’s because I just posted that picture recently, of Hikawa being terrified at having to talk to Shouichi, once he knows Shouichi is Agito, but I do love that plotline. It’s sort of got it all, for me and Agito? There’s some really funny Houjou stuff, some great Ozawa stuff, some charming Shouichi stuff (he’s trying so hard to not make it weird for Hikawa!), and a whole runner of Hikawa being incredibly weird about things.

It took me a while to warm up to Hikawa. I wrote him off as Ichijou #2, or Nijou, for a good stretch of episodes. But as the show went on, Hikawa’s story wasn’t Ichijou’s at all. He wasn’t a squared-jawed hero that was Dedicated To Justice. He was a stressed-out ball of neuroses, desperate to prove himself and failing due to his desperation. He was so insistent on What A Hero Is that he not only disbelieved Shouichi’s identity in this storyline, but he took forever to see his own heroism in this series. So much of Agito ended up being about making peace with yourself, accepting your shortcomings and celebrating your strengths, and Hikawa’s story is key to that theme.

Also, man, this scene kills me:

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...jfchikawa1.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...jfchikawa2.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...jfchikawa3.png
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https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...jfchikawa5.png
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https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...jfchikawa7.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...jfchikawa8.png

---

RYUKI (86 pages, 42941 words)

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ryuki/ryuki50a.png

I have thought about this shot of Reiko straightening cutlery probably once a week since I stopped watching Ryuki. It’s heartbreaking, her performing this invisible act of kindness for a man who’s already dead, but it’s something that becomes more and more definitively Ryuki as I keep remembering it.

Reiko at the restaurant… she hated Kitaoka to start with, and he earned every bit of her hatred. But over time, she paid attention to him, considered his viewpoint, watched him change, saw him grow, and decided he was worth giving a shot. As she’s waiting for him at the restaurant, unaware that he’s never going to arrive, she sees that his silverware is slightly askew. She knows that he’d hate that, that the first thing he’d do is straighten it and make some crack about the subpar service… so she adjusts it for him, saves him that little inconvenience. It’s a gesture that Kitaoka’d never even be aware of, never knew she did it for him, but she does it anyway. She knows him enough to do this for him.

And, like, that’s what the whole show is about? It’s a show that crams in more Riders than any show had before, specifically to explore how difficult it is to understand people, how impossible it can feel to empathize with their motivations, what kind of heroism it would take to sacrifice your happiness (or life) for someone else’s sake. (There’s a reason that we spend so much time with journalists on this show!) Every character in the show wants something specific. Spending time listening to them, trying to hear what they’re saying… it’s work. It can take months, if ever, to see things through someone else’s eyes. But the results can be meaningful, enlightening. And there’s a little scene of a woman straightening the cutlery of a man she used to hate that illustrates that beautifully.

---

FAIZ (134 pages, 58362 words)

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/faiz/faiz50j.png

--1--

There are literally too many things I loved about Faiz, too many things I still laugh at, to narrow it down to just one thing. Faiz is… Faiz is a show that’s taken up permanent space in my brain. It’s almost definitely going to end up being my favorite Phase 1 show.

Some of that is because of the insane character work, like that shot of Takumi walking through the fence, from the final episode. It’s him liberating himself from all of the shame he used to feel, all of the judgment he put on himself. Here, he’s done with that, and he won’t let Yuuji drag him down. He steps through the fence as Yuuji rages against a world that’s wronged him, that’s lived down to all of his fears and suspicions. Meanwhile, there’s Takumi: boldly striding into a future he’ll face head-on, clear-eyed.

--2--

Or there’s the rich thematic work done with the Orphnochs. Faiz was a show about coexistence, about how a marginalized group expresses its needs, how a dominant group examines its biases and restrictions. It’s about what happens when a story isn’t concerned with survival, but with day-to-day living.

All of those scenes of three monsters, living together, circling around ideas like integration and identity, ideas about how much of yourself you should give up to fit in… it’s a series that’s doing so much under the hood, and I feel like I’ve barely scratched its surface.

--3--

Or there’s Kaixa, the memes that generated a man. If there’s any character in Rider history that deserves his own holiday, it’s Kusaka. There were points where I was convinced he’d crossed a line, convinced he’d transgressed in a way I could never find him funny again. (Hitting Mari is a tough thing to watch.) But that performance. It’s indelible, iconic. There’s just an unceasing barrage of fantastic deliveries, facial expressions that defy musculature, and unexpected twists on Antagonism that create something truly special.

--4--

Or there’s the Faiz Gear, a collection of toyetic trinkets that activated the dormant chemicals Ex-Aid left in my brain. Phones that become guns, bike handles that become swords, and bikes that become asshole robots… the mechanics of Faiz were so endlessly fun.

--5--

Or there’s the Faiz HBV, which is the one indisputable piece of greatness in the Kamen Rider canon. Lives are forever changed by its majesty, and it was to my utmost joy that it wasn’t even in the top four things I thought of when I thought about Faiz.

---

BLADE (109 pages, 51355 words)

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/blade/blade49b.png

It’s that bench. It was never going to be anything other than that bench. I’m not even going to talk about why. If you haven’t seen Blade, I wouldn’t dream of ruining it for you. If you have seen Blade, you can’t even read these words through your tears.

---

HIBIKI (86 pages, 39508 words)

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../hibiki01a.png

“Mouth sounds, blood hounds, look what we've found
Some meaning on a scrap of tape
Are you burrowing through to some glowing core
Or shuffled off and side-tracked along the way
Breathing layers of paydirt and banner wavers
The clutter that is everyday”

-Superchunk, “Tiny Bombs”

It feels a little cruel, to say that everything after a premiere episode’s opening scene is a step down, but that’s just how good the introduction is to Asumu. The musicality of his existence, the rhythm of his routine, and the pure ecstasy of life… yeah, god, Hibiki does that in its first scene.

There’re plenty of ups and downs as the show progresses. Some thrilling moments of grace and beauty, and some tone-deaf moments of frustration and disappointment. But that opening is flawless enough to buy a rude amount of forgiveness. One of the best openings of any Rider show, ever.

---

KABUTO (halfway done, 54 pages, 26424 words)

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../kabuto04a.png

I think I recently said that the end of Episode 4 was something I don’t think Kabuto will ever top, and I still feel that way now. (A whole few days later. I know! What a resolute determination of quality.) It’s the episode that locks in so many things: Tendou’s tough love; Kagami’s Very Big Feelings; how the two of them try to navigate a friendship; and what Clock Up can do to render a normal fight iconic, evocative. I don’t really need to rehash my feelings about it. It was only a few weeks ago, and you can just tab back a few pages. Suffice it to say, this one still looms large over the series for me. A series high-point, and one I’m hopeful can be surpassed.

---

That’s it! (Except for the Grease movie!) That’s what I can remember from the Kamen Rider shows I’ve watched in 2020. Looking ahead to 2021, the provisional schedule is:

January-February: Kabuto
February-May: Den-O (I think there’s a lot of movies and extra stuff?)
June-August: Kiva
September-December: Decade

Only four shows in 2021, as opposed to 2020’s five and a half, but Decade is a thing.

I can’t believe that I’m already charting out all of 2021. It’s you guys’ fault, just so you know. You’ve taken what was some weird lark, as I was midway through Ghost (it was a punishing first half!), and nurtured it with your kindness and generosity. Now I’m planning the second straight year of constant watching and writing. It’s insane. You guys are nuts for enabling this.

I love every single one of you, though. Thank you for helping me get through 2020, and I very much look forward to spending 2021 with you.

(INOUE FOREVER.)

:thumb:

Since Decade is literally the shortest Heisei Rider show, I'm curious to find out what you have planned that could make it such a big project for you.

Well, this is what I brought up previously to question, about where this part count as the keeping someone away from the truth trope? Hiyori isn't a combatant and going in Area X would be a complete suicide. And well, what do you expect between someone like those 2? They're incredibly stubborn, even Kagami, I wouldn't think that they would quickly learn their lessons (and Tendou would see himself as the right anyway, after protecting Hiyori from the Worms, especially with his ego that he thought that she's in the wrong and he directly saved her from danger, and his main concern is only about how the other's lives are saved, regardless of how he arrived forever or being a dick at his heroic arrival). Also, in ep. 19, you complimented about Juka always being in a delight, and Tendou's treatment of Hiyori is the closest he gave compared to Juka's... probably think about that part of ep. 19 too about "not worry her pretty little head"? Their motive, likely especially Tendou's, is keeping up Hiyori's mood as much as possible as he can, like what you complimented about Juka, and only giving the info after clear, full info is get (It's probably, like what I sometimes self-inflict, like with my high standards regarding exam marks, I'd only check those marks after every exam in every subject is done, wouldn't check them during the exam period as if I got lower than my expectations, that'd potentially demotivate me during the other subject exams and rub salt into the wound).

And again for this part, where below you refer to this as "cooler story" this is wholly about ZECT, would this be a strictly plot part which is to you isn't your cup of tea, and sometimes for phase 1, plots can be a detriment to character stuff instead? Or that this one's done in the usual Tendou way (of taking a job field temporarily) which you did appreciate before? Also, this probably shows ZECT isn't merely having greater plans than protecting Tokyo, but also, actually being fishy (demeanor of Goro-chan a.k.a Mishima and one of its members like Kageyama, or the complaints about HQ orders from Misaki and Kagami which Tadokoro dismissed as absolute).

Well, I'm also throwing another one out there: Kabuto's centerpiece of superpower is Clock-Up, where you move as fast as light. And if the speed goes further than that, you'll be able to.. travel over time.. right?

The part where Tendou climbs the rank in the police, probably that's one of the parts where it showed how Tendou got applied to a job field he wants to use, as this is Kamen Rider, just helping cops to solve crime with combat skills. I guess the cops here are more accepting of that compared to the very beginning of Kuuga regarding Yusuke. And this part also shows how monstrously strong Kamen Riders are compared to normal humans, and that the stats of their punches/kicks being measured in tons aren't only for show. Also honestly, anytime a Rider makes a physical contact with humans that'll terrify me, with how destructive the Riders are compared to them. I guess with Tendou's charm offensive, he's not lacking in social skills... he just puts it on when it's necessary like conversing with officials, while being condescending otherwise if there's no benefit putting it on.

Diving is a sport field, so Tsurugi's motivation on that correlates to the other parts like soccer, fencing, etc. There's an appearence of the first executive leader Worm in Rena Mamiya, a Worm that won't be a MOTW. Daisuke's actor Kazuki Kato focuses on his musician career, so he'd have rarer appearence, but he's not a one-shot character. Worm's disguise shows its deadly capabilities again here where WorMisaki visits Bistro La Salle to ask one of the people who knew Tendou family. With Misaki being trusted comrade of Kagami's, Kagami is nothing to blame here for unwittingly sent Juka to her doom, it'd be hard to deceive her here (and her evil grin was done outsight of Kagami's view).

My tokusatsu resolution, as already said before, is to collect "better wiki substitute" about each Rider series and collectively share them to people. And also interchangably with that, to not only finish what I watch for toku series, but also gain deeper understanding regarding those.

You'll all find out during the Kiva thread, since it's also going to require some prepwork.

I still love that no matter all the varying opinions that nearly every Rider show has, one thing remains resolute about anyone who's watched Blade.

Bench.

Honestly, in a vacuum, I don't dislike the investigation into ZECT. It's something that the two heroes feel strongly about, and it's something Kagami in particular has a vested interest in. I even like the way the show pursued it, making both heroes proactive in their search for answers.

My problem is that the show more or less abandons Hiyori's story for the Tendou/Kagami story, and it does it in an incredibly clumsy way. Like, imagine you're at a restaurant, and you ordered a piece of cake for dessert. Instead of cake, the server brings out a whole pie... and then hits you in the face with it. Even if you liked pie, you probably wouldn't like it served to you in that way.

I'm still pretty bummed that the recent SHODO sets for Blade characters didn't include a bench. There are more memes than just marble-mouthed heroes and dramatic corners!

I'm glad to hear you consider my writing something to live up to, but as admirable a trait as modesty is, I refuse to let you sell yourself short this many times in one thread. I mean, this specific show is a perfect time to say this, too, because I've haphazardly stumbled my way into a co-writer position for Kabuto*, so people have been seeing for a month now exactly how true this is, but I don't think I could ever claim to beat you out when it comes to precision, or even just general thoughtfulness.

It took me like most of a decade to get the point where I could hopefully say some interesting things about Kuuga; you watch an episode of Faiz for the first time and within 24 hours can write a whole paragraph about the deep metaphorical significance of a fence and how it speaks to the way people entrap themselves in their own negativity. I'm sure you look at that as just saying what you feel like it's probably nothing special, but if there was one thing I could throw in your face to get to you realize how good you truly are at this, it's that Faiz thread. I was reading so many of those posts in a state of absolute shock seeing how wonderfully you were putting the kind of thoughts I had about that show into words in a way I simply couldn't. Not to mention all the great thoughts I would've never had, either.

And the best part is it's not even like you're some kind of one-hit wonder here. I still remember being amazed by your grasp on Agito's overall themes even barely into the show's run, and the fun you had with its characters; my confusion any time you insist you could've said more about Ryuki, as though your analysis of eating utensils somehow wasn't deep enough; the joy of watching you discover the surprisingly solid drama within much of Blade's oft-overlooked first half; the fun of seeing you give Hibiki such a fair shot on either side of its infamous change in direction; and I'm currently getting quite used to the feeling of knowing I can't hope to top what you can say about an episode of Kabuto!

There's never been a dull moment in these threads, as far as I'm concerned. Every one of them is equal parts insightful and hilarious, and another straight year of this sounds beyond exciting.

(Also, based on that schedule, I'm unofficially declaring June-August of 2021 to be The Summer of Inoue.)

*And the impulsiveness with which I commit to these things is why I don't have any toku resolutions to share, by the way. There's a reason I can't even remember for sure what exact order I watched the Heisei Riders in!

So I'll just say that I'm really glad I've decided to watch these shows again alongside you. The first few threads were fun to read along with, but actually watching the shows again alongside your commentary has really given me a chance to re-appreciate all of them. I don't know if I ever would have given Faiz a second chance without your thread. I can't say it's my new favorite now, but I really did rediscover so many great elements of it that I'll never write it off as bad again. I'm honestly really excited to see what will happen when we get to Kiva, a show I would constantly rag on before Ghost supplanted it as my all-time least favorite (although I will always stand up for Takeru over Kiva's lead).

At 31 episodes it's still just a hair longer than Hibiki.

You are too nice.

I sincerely appreciate how much people on this board let me get weird about these shows. I remember the trepidation of posting that first Ghost thread last year, and wondering if I'd just have folks yelling at me for a few days before I split. But it was just really nice? You, in particular, were so gracious about discussing Ghost, rather than just taking my concerns and questions as trolling or bad comedy. It was such an unexpectedly pleasant experience, having folks really engage with these episodes, getting to geek out over great moments. There were so many times this all could've gone wrong, but y'all never once let me down.

If these threads are any good, it's because everyone on these boards allows them to be good.

(I am so looking forward to the Summer of Inoue... except it's always the Summer of Inoue in my heart.)

Thanks! These are fun shows to watch, but they're even more fun to talk about with other fans. It's awesome to see your comments, and I'm grateful you're taking time to rewatch Kabuto. It's got a lot to recommend it!

I hope these threads, preserved as they are, can maybe be of some value to future fans. It's also why I'm excited to eventually be able ("able", like I'm being prevented by some outside force) to watch the weekly episodes. The chance to have a weeklong thread where folks discuss a current episode, with no chance for spoilers, where it's all about that one unit of entertainment... that seems pretty great? I hope you all appreciate that option!

Please don't ever change.

It is not only the hill that I will die on, but I've purchased a plot there so it will also be where I am buried and the ghost of Hayden Christensen will haunt it for me.

I was going to say some extremely embarrassing thing about how it's because it was Ghost that I'd be that way, and went to maybe pull some screencaps of relevant Takeru quotes from that (excellent) final episode, but Over-Time's translations don't quite work in this context and also I'm just too happy thinking about how awesome Ghost is now to write anything elaborate, so have this embarrassing thing instead:

https://i.imgur.com/lEz5AqG.png

I can't wait to see you clear Heisei Rider with no continues come 2022. :thumb:

(Also, speaking of which, one of my fondest personal memories surrounding Ex-Aid is that it was the first show I ever posted in every single episode thread for on here, week by week, which was a lot of fun. Let me tell you, that was a Christmas nobody will soon forget!) :lol

Come on, you watched Ex-Aid. You should know that these things only get cleared with perfect co-op.

its always heart warming to see two arch rivals coming together for the common good

This is the most wholesome thread and the most fun place on the boards - thank you for making 2020 brighter!

I have no idea what's happening but I know I must be sentimental.

I think you're all great, and honestly I love reading these threads, they're so thoughtful and fun. At some point I have to condense one into like a rider series bible/analysis thing.

This is a pretty fun way to end a year, you guys.

Sometimes when I see you and Fish telling each other you're better I'm reminded of how Spielberg and Kubrick had a great friendship, yet also a deep envy of each other; Spielberg wishing he could make movies with as much symbolic depth as Kubrick while Kubrick wishing he could match up to the spectacle and awe that Spielberg was able to pull off -- despite both styles of course being amazing in their own way and doing things the other could not, ultimately leaving us better off for it.

Not quite the same thing, but I'm reminded of it! Happy new year! My new years resolution for Toku is to try and branch out to stuff outside 'the big three' -- I want to watch Tiga, Cosmos, Black RX and a handful of 2000s Sentai; but after that I wanna have a look at a few things outside of Rider, Sentai and Ultra such as Metal Heroes.

That is a lovely analogy, and deeply flattering. You are... god, that's just incredibly thoughtful and nice. This is a very emotional New Year's Eve!

I'm going to use this very small window of sentimentality to mention how much I admire your nearly encyclopedic knowledge of your passions (I wish I remembered half as much about the shows I loved as you do for yours), as well as your ability to snipe into threads with just gaudy insight and analysis, saying in a couple sentences what the rest of the thread has been grasping at for pages. Do not think that Fish is the only person on these boards I envy!

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 26

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https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../kabuto26b.png

I think Hiyori's face in those screencaps really says it all. I was making that same face for most of this one, as well. It's a massive, welcome course-correction from the previous episode, acting as a chilling indictment of the previous pivot away from respecting Hiyori's needs.

Maybe I gotta learn from Hiyori? She opts to trust Tendou, pushing aside her doubts because he's proven once again that he cares about her, wants her to be happy. Me and this show, it's sort of similar. They had a bad episode, but I should've trusted it was all going somewhere special.

I really loved this episode, since it's retroactively as critical of the characters' action in 25 as I was. Everyone's screwed in this one, all of our heroes. Tendou has bluffed his way to a face-to-face with Kagami's dad, Kagami Outrageous, and it's netted him nothing but smirking dismissals and vague threats against those closest to him. Tendou thought he could drop some bombshell on Outrageous, but he's informed that he is actually seven or eight bombshells late. Meanwhile, Kagami thinks he's going to get some answers at ZECT HQ, and Goro literally laughs at his naivete.

This is an episode where the two heroes are laughed at by the villains, behind every conceivable eight ball, and I love it. I love it because it's mostly of their own doing. 24 ended with our cast teaming up to support one another, and 25 has them immediately forgetting those lessons. Tendou launches his own investigation, while Kagami and Misaki cut out Tadokoro with their subterfuge. Simultaneously, Hiyori is left to twist in the wind, abandoned by her friends. The whole previous episode is reframed from proactive heroism into Everyone Screwed Up.

What's even better about 26 is that no one really says that? There's never a point where Kagami or Tendou state how much they dropped the ball last time. But you can see it, in each of their stories.

Kagami's has him hitting bottom when Tadokoro shows up to his bungled break-in (ZECT never even brought him to their HQ!), making Tadokoro so furious he punches Gatack's helmet. That visual of Tadokoro's bruised knuckles, it's as painful for Kagami as if he'd really been punched in the face. Here's someone he respected, and he's let him down by pursuing answers on his own. Worse, Tadokoro feels like he can't work for an organization he can't understand, or lead people who don't respect him. He's ready to cash it in.

But Kagami knows he won't get anywhere on his own. Him and Misaki, they need Tadokoro. There's strength in numbers. If Kagami can get across to Tadokoro how much they still need him, they might actually have a chance of defeating the Worms and discovering the truth behind the Masked Rider Project.

All of that was great, and I loved how much the episode hinged on Kagami rediscovering the merits of teamwork, how key the whole ZECT In A Van team was to defeating the Worms this time. (Dude was a Kamen Rider for, like, one day and he forgot that. Kagami! You are as constant as the northern star.) After last episode's superhero-y momentum, it's so much more pleasing to see everyone remember that you don't succeed alone. You need to let people in, remind them of their value, be just that small amount vulnerable.

So let's talk about Tendou and Hiyori.

It's as strong a resolution to their plot as I'd've dared wish for. It only needed to emotionally challenge Tendou to get where I was happy with it.

The part where I knew this was all going to work out for me was when Tendou's chased the Misaki Worm into that stairwell. The Worm's hiding, but her bracelet gives her away to Tendou. Normally, this is where he'd do his My Grandmother Always Said thing, some cute phrase to let the Worm know he wasn't rattled. But he doesn't do that, because he is rattled. It's not even just the Worm going after Juka; it's Outrageous having him totally outflanked, it's his whole infiltration amounting to nothing, it's Hiyori calling him out on his bullshit... it's everything. It's the walls closing in. Tendou yells at the Worm that nobody gets away with threatening Juka. It's personal to Tendou then. This isn't some game, and he can't keep his emotions locked away.

It all boils over when Tendou tries to talk to Hiyori again, tries to regain her trust, but it doesn't work. He's giving her nothing but evasions and gaslighting, while demanding her trust. He's trying to keep her close, keep her safe, but every word out of his mouth pushes her further away.

And then the Worms attack, because of course they do; and Tendou gets his ass kicked, because he's all alone against a monster with minions, with support, with allies. So he hides behind a crate with Hiyori, ready for the end... and he just tells her the truth. All of his schemes have failed him, every trick he's tried has blown up in his face. So he just tells her the truth. Yes, he was The Boy In The Belt. But no, he can't tell her what happened seven years ago. Thinking it's another evasion, Hiyori demands to know why, and Tendou, frustrated, pleads with her to leave it at that. He's hiding something from her, yes, but now he's admitting it, demonstrating how much it's hurting him, and begging her to let it lie for now. It's not transparency, but it's honesty, and it means something to her.

Because Hiyori gets not being able to explain things to people, gets being unable to handle your feelings. Before, Tendou's smirking lies were an insult. Here, his pained, exhausted need to keep something hidden feels relatable, universal. He needs her to trust him, or he won't be able to get through this moment.

And, god, what a moment. That look up there, on Hiyori's face. A raw, emotional Tendou, screaming that he'll protect her from everything that'd hurt her, forever. She's stunned, same as the audience is. We've never seen this side of Tendou, never witnessed him this vulnerable, this exposed. He's not the master-puppeteer, the pretentious master of the universe. He's her friend, and he's never going to stop being that.

After that, there's a Kamen Rider team-up and some fun action, but... I can't pretend that the episode didn't hit its climax way before that.

A QUESTION

Hey, 2021. First thing I did in this new year (after catching up with a few friends across the internet) was watch this episode of Kabuto, and it was a smart choice. Felt real good. What's the first toku thing you did or are going to do for this year? (Besides reading or posting on TokuNation. That's a given!)

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../kabuto26c.png

Awww, thanks! It's kinda funny you cite me remembering a lot of things about the shows I love right after a post about you remembering a lot of things about the shows you love, especially after I continued my rewatch of OOO and Ghost where it turns out there's a LOT I didn't remember about those; but I'm grateful nonetheless! I'm not sure I'd praise myself quite as much as you're doing here, but I'm always trying to get better at this, so I appreciate it :D

My first Toku thing of the year? Turns out it was watching OOO Episode 16 and Ghost Episode 12 and having a lot to say about them! I feel I've been stumbling to say stuff on this rewatch but I'm pretty happy with what I got down here.

https://i.imgur.com/fycRuHu.png

This was easily one of the best episodes of the series yet. I cannot even begin to describe how smart it was of Kabuto to let us see Tendou pushed to the edge like this right around the halfway mark. To see him get so frustrated by people who know more than he does; to see him so off-balance he gets forcibly knocked out of his transformation. Tendou gets hit hard enough to be forced out of a transformation! It's an episode that works wonders for both humanizing Tendou, and reaffirming that, despite his usual attitude, he is, at his heart, a person whose heroism is entirely genuine. Thankfully, Die already told you all this.

The thing is, that's not even half of what makes this episode so spectacular. This is an especially killer one on a rewatch. Much like Tendou, I'm sworn to secrecy about the things I know, so for Die's sake I can't go into too much detail, but everything this episode chooses to be about is massively relevant to later developments not only in terms of the literal hints it drops, but just emotionally and thematically, as well. It's some of the most considered writing I've seen yet on Kabuto.

A lot of this comes from how Sasword's brief little subplot plays out, with the Worm who mimics Misaki genuinely developing feelings for him, evidently having picked up some genuine humanity, which ends with Tsurugi cutting her down, reasserting his desire for vengeance against Worms as a whole. There's the continued obvious dramatic irony there of what Tsurugi's true nature is (though that goes unmentioned here), but there's a little more at play, broadly speaking, that keeps it very roped in to what the rest of the plot is about.

Kagami's end of things is maybe the most straightforward segment of the episode, but it's no less well put together and important. Admittedly, I'm a little unclear on what exactly Tadokoro's little analysis of the Worm towards the endaccomplished, since the game plan after that seems to just be "hit it really hard with your sweet hoverboard", but—

Well, no, you know what? I don't even care to complain about the details, because sweet hoverboard. The whole action climax here is just great. It's one of those ones where it's essentially a big party celebrating the properly emotional narrative climax that happens just beforehand, and it's glorious. The perfect timing of Full Force starting up as Kagami asks Tendou to join back in on the fun; them just going nuts on their respective stupid gimmicky bikes; Kagami making like Wizard would years down the line and using his gimmicky bike as a big foot to kick the monster with; it could only be any cooler if Gatack's bike was also part of a huge dragon instead of merely being shaped like a beetle. And also if they had actually managed to defeat the monster, but still, that's all fine! It's good that Rena wants to stick around, and surviving that like it's barely a problem helps build her up as a threat. And the episode doesn't even leave you hanging when it comes to seeing a monster blow up, as Gatack and Kabuto make sure to at least get the Worm that helped save Rena, which is the next best thing!

Again, utterly spectacular episode of Kabuto. I feel like there's a ton I haven't even gone into. Like, I didn't even mention Hiyori until just now! Oh man, what I am even doing? Let me just wrap back around to that main plot thread real quick to say that, yes, Hiyori is also great in this one, because she's always great. I'm starting to sort of take for granted all the usual excellent body language and inflections and everything I've already mentioned on several occasions, but rest assured that even when I'm not directly calling attention to it, it's still there. There are also some fantastic bits of writing in this particular episode though. One thing I'm kind of shocked Die didn't call attention to is how, directly after that big declaration from Tendou's that he's going to protect Hiyori, he gets knocked aside, and Hiyori immediately puts herself between him and Rena in an effort to protect him right back, demonstrating more through action rather than just words how much she cares too.

A+ plus showing from Hiyori in an A+ episode. Glad I trusted this two-parter was going somewhere special!

Happy new Kabuto! My personal resolution is to become a Kamen Rider myself (hey, might as well aim high. It's nice that the first episode of Rider you watched this year ended on such a strong note.

Anyhow as a total tangent, it's too bad you have to rely on the mess that is RiderWiki a lot of the time, especially when the official Japanese rider info site has such helpful pages like this one.

My first Toku thing this year was Goseiger’s vs movie.

Not got a lot to say about the episode itself, but I will have something to say about the movie.

The first toku thing I did in the year was watch Kabuto episodes 31-34

It was a trip, let me tell you

Oh! I only just noticed this post since it went up right as I was making my last one. You should be happy with what you wrote about those episodes; it was really good! Also, I'm starting to notice we're all really bad at taking compliments! :lol

(For the record,my first toku thing of the year was also this episode of Kabuto, naturally. I'm probably going to go and rewatch Ghost's Hyper Battle Videos for the fun of it pretty soon, to give a slightly more interesting answer to the question at hand.)

More than half of my experience of writing is getting to the end of the process and going Wait Is That All I've Got, so those feelings are pretty relatable. (It feels very common, for the creative process.) I'm glad you're throwing down things you're happy with, though!

I sort of mentioned it near the beginning, but, yeah: great moment in a great episode dedicated to a great relationship. Tendou's as shocked at Hiyori's protection as Hiyori was about Tendou's. It's very much the two of them seeing how similar they are, how their feelings towards one another are frequently obfuscated, misinterpreted. At the end, they're able to see in each other something greater than their apprehension and frustrations.

(Hey, quick note about my process. It's bad! I don't really do any prepping or roughing out what I write. I'll start with a vague idea of a major point or two I want to cover, like Hiyori/Tendou or the teamwork of ZECT In A Van, and then just write until I feel like I've hit a beat I like as the end. With this episode... I genuinely could not imagine trying to talk past that Tendou scene. Everything that comes after it is great, and I knew I could count on you to articulate the sheer fun of the big battle at the end, but that Tendou scene. Everything after that was just denouement for me.)

I don't think you're supposed to want that! Every episode that has a kid wanting to be a Kamen Rider makes the characters in it cry!

That is a way better setup than RiderWiki, but I feel like you picking an entry for my least-favorite Blade story is... are you pranking me? Is this a New Year's goof?

It is important to celebrate the New Year by honoring the personification of the sun, as it was in olden times. We should have all been watching Kabuto every New Year's! Nobody told me!

I love the acknowledgement of your Ghost-watching being "for the fun of it". It's okay to watch these things when you feel like, kids, and not just from some longform schedule. Don't live by our example!

I was just being cheeky, yes... There are good things about the previous year to remember, and there is also Black Fang.

I made some comment the other day about not really remembering anything from shows I've watched (fun fact, needed to go look up Reiko's name from Ryuki), but something about the bad episodes... like, seeing that goddamn bike was Proustian, immediately taking me back to the six or seven hours that I had to watch it slowly drive through empty streets, and get blown up because of aerodynamics (???)... honestly, it was like I was there again, hating watching an episode of Blade all over again. And they say time travel might not exist...

Good rib!

Haha, the first toku thing I did this year was come to the boards and then watch this ep of Kabuto to follow the discussion, which - yes, this feels like a pretty great choice :D Especially with how hard it's been over the past several months to feel connected to people, watching an episode reaffirming how important it is to value friendship just hits different this time around.

....but the actual first thing I did this year was take the dog to the dog park to run around in the snow at dawn, wearing multiple hoodies because it's cold and she's tiny :lol

Just a friendly reminder that my 15 step process for writing about Kamen Rider was only kind of a joke; that's legitimately how every single one of those posts about Kuuga got made!

Thankfully, it's rarely that extreme. What I've been doing for Kabuto is pretty much what you just described, with the bonus step of trying to make sure it's not too redundant of something you already said in your post. A lot of times this goes pretty well! Sometimes, I use a picture of Kagami running away in tears because I don't feel it went as well!

Let's just say there's a reason Hiyori bad-mouthing her own art was such a relatable beat early on. Not that I want to turn this thread into a support group for people writing way too much about Kamen Rider on forums.

...Unless you guys are cool with that, in which case we could keep going like this for a while

Hey, like I said, I do all this on impulse. Reading a glowing review of one of Ghost's best episodes barely any time after already reminiscing about it from you bringing up your first thread is absolutely the sort of thing that will put me in a mood to watch some Ghost!

Firstly, please post pictures of your dog somewhere on the forums because she sounds adorable thank you.

Secondly, man, I can't say enough about how much better 25 came off retroactively due to the work 26 does. Like, the whole story is about how necessary it is to depend on each other, how the size of the obstacles the the characters are facing isn't something they can handle alone. But the the first part of the story, where everyone's just doing it themselves, thinking they're unstoppable, that shit is played with zero judgment. There's nothing in 25 that says we're watching a story about Tendou and Kagami needing to be more humble about their capabilities, or inclusive of others. It's actually the opposite?

Which makes 26 so good for revealing itself to be the punishment for those boys thinking they could do it all alone. And all without a single speech highlighting the lesson!

No Mods Or Kings In 2021! We talk about what we want, when we want, where we want.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but getting to know a lot of creative people in my life, and seeing how ridiculous their psychology is, led me to create this distillation of how artists view their art:

THE NEWEST STUFF: Ugh, it could've been so much better. So many missed opportunities.
THE OLDER STUFF: Yikes. Abysmal. No one should judge me by this. Needs to be dropped in the ocean, where no one can find it.
THE RECENT STUFF THAT WAS PREVIOUSLY NEW: I can't believe those ingrates didn't see how genius this was.

Like, for every post I finish where I'm like Don't Sweat It You'll Get 'Em Next Time, I'll occasionally need to look through an old thread of mine for something, and I'll be like Holy Shit I Can't Believe I Came Up With That. There's something about the process that makes appreciating something you've created so difficult. It's all the phrases that are too rough, or the connections that you feel are too strained. Every line has the echo of the work it took to get there, and you can see every crack and stress in it. But once you've forgotten the work, blanked on the process, it's just the creation, which can be appreciated on its own.

...until eventually it's been replaced by more assured work, in which case it needs to be obliterated.

Which is why, I want to delve deeper into the conflicting views between if these kind of things are character flaw that is intended in the story, or writing flaw. And tbh, this applies for series like Faiz too, with how a good number of people cited it as writing flaws for miscommunications, or those mistakes being intentional for the characters (there are those that acknowledged characters miscommunicating, but that Faiz' one is too severe where it reached outright kindergarten levels). So by this it seems that, by this review at least, it's the former. Goro-chan a.k.a Mishima laughing at his naivete isn't something to criticize Kagami for, it's just in his character to act dismissal of others. Riku Kagami, Gatack's dad is pulling the exact same shit as Tendou did in previous episode, where he's the one getting you cannot know the truth. Wouldn't he got the blame for doing the same? (Tendou's doing the wrong thing previously, but the other one?).

For people like Kagami, especially he needs to prioritize teamwork, especially for someone who isn't the best in teamworks before. Of course, having your life considered worthless is painful, but Kagami also needs to know his limits, and put away his ego (for wanting to be considered special) if the situation needs it. If him or any of the heroes insists to solve things alone based on ego, let this be a lesson where people sometimes view humility as weakness, ego isn't always a good thing to have in your missions either. But for this one too, what catches my attention more here was Tadokoro, where would he break away from his drone-mindset this time? He clearly cares about Kagami and Misaki, and he seems to be more moral and well-adjusted compared to Kageyama and Mishima, but he has obeyed any HQ order without question (and at least he'd resign when he can't proceed anymore). Admittedly ZECT in a Viano team this time assisted directly in a fight, but they've always been about defeating the Worms before, but not being successful doesn't mean they didn't do that.

And regarding WorMisaki, it's a case of a Worm gaining human feelings, it already had happened too, like the one that faced her, Tsurugi. He was the Worm who killed Mika and real Tsurugi, but Tsurugi's arrogant personality also overpowered the Worm's own, and it became the Tsurugi that is known as Sasword. Probably also explains Tsurugi's fast reflexes to counter WorMisaki lowering his guard, albeit with a scar on his cheek.

I feel like about Tendou getting his ass kicked isn't about him being alone, he just suddenly dropped in performance here. Previously he has shown to be able to take these kind of enemy hordes alone. Even beating a Worm while going Clock Up with Masked Form (the one before Cast Off) by reflecting lasers. Tendou is losing his cool more and more in this episode, and the one that made him lose it was his sister Juka, but the only other person who made him go apeshit like that was Hiyori, which'd be an important foreshadowing. Dunno why, but I feel like, Tendou underperforming at this part of the episode, would've him thinking that, like what he preached before, emotion is a weakness, and that him underperforming due to being carried by emotions for Juka and Hiyori would reaffirm his stance of that... Tendou tells Hiyori a bit regarding the past where he's the one with belt, but he still didn't tell anything right? Also yeah, it's not as simple as that. You're ok with another "dragging", or about yet another plot mystery part of a Rider series, if there's a progress and change of it even for a tiny amount?

Yeah, it's definitely intentional. It's to the show's credit that it's so subtly applied in 25, where it's not clear until later that the boys are out of their depth.

Sure, Goro's always dismissive of others, but Kagami is being naive here. A clock that looks down on people is right twice a day, after all!

I don't 100% follow what you're saying about Kagami Outrageous, but he's probably got some really good reasons for keeping the truth from Tendou.

Well, Tadokoro is basically playing the Hiyori role for the Kagami plot. Tadokoro is hard-pressed to defend ZECT anymore (them trying to murder Gatack because he asked too many questions is probably his breaking point), and he doesn't feel like his subordinates respect him, since they completely cut him out of their plan. Kagami needs to show Tadokoro that he matters, and that their team can't succeed without him.

This particular Worm was no slouch, though! She whipped both Daisuke and Kageyama single-handed, and she was backed up by multiple Worms when she faced Tendou. He's definitely more distracted than he's been in the past, but I'm not sure he could've beaten her alone on his best day.

Well, it's all about how it's incorporated. Here, it was using the mystery to enhance the character development, which is great. Previously, it seemed like it was ignoring the character development to address the mystery, which is less great. It's always about how these various types of storytelling are utilized.

I’m not sure what toku thing I want to do first this year. I’m thinking of rewatching and catching up on saber, but I’m open to suggestions.